Posts by Kyle Matthews

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  • Southerly: Energy Special, Part 6: The…,

    I think I see where your confusion lies, Andrew...

    I need moveable diagrams on my TV and a cutesy cartoon character to explain it all. If you could just whip that up please...

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • OnPoint: The Master Plan,

    Now, finally, everyone can STFU about the goddamn surplus

    Heh. Good luck with that one Keith. I'm betting "no".

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Monster Weekend,

    I think, for example, that David Irving is better described as 'fiction writer', rather than 'historian'.

    I think a lot of historians would take offence at having David Irving called a historian.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Another nail in the coffin of…,

    That's kind of what nz internet providers look like at the moment with their piss poor service but you don't see them making any urgent plans to fix anything. so long as you're paying the maximum they think they can squeeze out of you a month and happily sending emails and looking at web pages they're quite happy, they don't seem to be so keen to offer much more than that to joe average at the moment.

    I've been with my current isp (actually, only ever isp) for 12 years now, they give me good service, I'm happy with what I pay, and I get good speed and they've never tried to constrain what I do online, even if I do things that are illegal.

    If you're getting less than that, I'd recommend you change.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Another nail in the coffin of…,

    the other plans offer gigs by purchase for maintaining your speed, so yes, you can maintain high speed but you have to pay extra for it, so you're kind of paying for your media downloads, but the money is not going to the artist or digital rights holder, its going to your internet provider for allowing you to have the bandwith that will allow you to feast on free pirate media.

    Well, I increased my payment to my isp the other day another $10/month, to get another 15 GB onto my cap. Which, if you assume maybe 10 MB/track, say 150MB/album, is 100 albums, at $0.10 each in cost. So just a wee bit cheaper than buying the actual music.

    But yes, people will use isps that provide the service that they're looking for, and that includes downloading music files by various means. If one isp finds a way to lock that down, people will switch. There's no way that every isp in the world is going to clamp down on "high internet users". They'll look like idiots shutting down the information superhighway.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Monster Weekend,

    <quote>I daresay the point I am missing is why people bother writing "alternative" versions of history.</quote

    It's considered to be largely worthless amongst the historical profession, though there are exceptions.

    Amongst writers of fiction... why not?

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: All your copyright are belong…,

    Whoever judged this complaint acknowledged the programme makers were operating for commercial gain, but that the public benefit (of learning from the accident and its aftermath) outweighed the private suffering of the family. So the footage could be aired.

    I don't know what the story is with those types of 'reality' shows. But I presume lots of criminals don't want their faces appearing on cops, but that fuzzy face thing they do must move it into a different box. Was that how it was shown?

    They shouldn't have worried too much. I don't know anyone who watches Motorway Patrol.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Another nail in the coffin of…,

    chocking data flow will save the movie industry, but it won't save music.

    The only time I ever did illegal downloading I was on a dialup account. It was a little slow, but a couple of megabytes doesn't take long. Anything over that... people will find it annoying, but they'll continue.

    They'll also just find an isp that doesn't do it. Large data flow is not necessarily an indication of doing anything illegal, so there will be isps that will allow it for those that pay.

    The flow of isps over the past 10 years has been largely one of increasing speed, and amount of time that people have online. That's not going to radically reverse to suit the needs of the music industry.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Another nail in the coffin of…,

    so 75% of all music consumption is pirated?
    thats not so bad is it........?

    I have no idea what the actual level is - the report notes that China has a massive music industry, but annually only sells $74 million US of music. And that this means that around 99% of music in China is pirated. Personally I own CDs or tapes of about 90% of the music in my household. I don't go looking online for music, if I want a CD I buy it.

    But I was just pointing out that the 20 times as much statement isn't actually correct as the Herald, and you used it.

    The exact amount is kind of irrelevant. The point is that the internet tied with the digitisation of music has broken the model of sale of music that's been around for a few decades now. It'll thrash around for another decade or so, and either accept that they only sell X% of the music that people have, or they'll change the model, or they'll disappear. What they won't do, is get the horse back in the current stable.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Another nail in the coffin of…,

    This from the herald this morning

    "Illegally downloaded tracks now outnumber legally bought music tracks by 20 to 1, the international trade body said today".

    That's a slightly misleading statement, and the heading of the article is worse.

    What the IFPI has said is that the amount of music illegally downloaded, is 20 times the amount of tracks purchased digitally online. Digital sales are 15% of total sales, so they're saying, in a dramatic and not very direct way, that illegal downloads are three times the amount of legal music sales. The 20 times figure pretty misleading.

    I looked at the actual report. The section that it's in provides references and studies for several facts on the issue, except that one. As far as I can tell, the 20 times figure has been plucked out of a hat.

    The actual quote from the report is:

    Tens of billions of illegal music files are traded annually worldwide at an estimated ratio of 20 illegal downloads for every track sold.

    Estimated. Apparently they did pull it out of a hat.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

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